What is Digg?55 Comments
- ProfessorSYM, on 11/22/2008, -5/+28What they don't talk about is the fact that they have Mexican children spinning the propellers all day using a crude lever system.
- dballagh, on 11/21/2008, -6/+28What, No government intervention required? This is a great example of how the "free" market works, let businesses decide the technology.
- superkendall, on 11/22/2008, -0/+20Boy, I knew the 360 had a really loud fan but if it can power whole Wal-Marts....
- inactive, on 11/21/2008, -6/+22this will be great, maybe they can finally afford to pay there workers, what they are really worth
- Stuart750, on 11/22/2008, -4/+17How dare you talk about people like that. They're working to bring some money home for their families, and you speak of them like they're some kid of degenerate, worthless vermin.
It's unfortunate to know that people like you exist on Digg. - kirra27, on 11/21/2008, -1/+14Very nice! I'm glad such a huge corporation like wal-mart is going to take a step in the right direction.
- redslash, on 11/22/2008, -0/+7If only we had more government and industry support for nuclear, they might actually be able to power a significant amount of stores.
- eklife, on 11/22/2008, -0/+6Step in the proper direction, perhaps?
- SaintStryfe, on 11/22/2008, -6/+12Actually, there was probably some very generous goverment rebates to buy wind power. And the underlying technology was also probably researched with government funds.
So yeah, take your faux-libertarianism and cry. - superkendall, on 11/22/2008, -0/+6Hi there. Reality here. Do you know how MANY turbines would be required to run a whole WalMart?
Needless to say, the people living nearby would not be amused. - danwgre, on 11/22/2008, -0/+6***** that! They should be running those stores on 100% fusion power! Corporate pigs!
- jonnyboy88, on 11/22/2008, -3/+8The federal government and most (if not all) states have tax incentives and rebates for solar, wind, and other renewable energy.
http://dsireusa.org/
So who's crying now? - Split98, on 11/22/2008, -2/+6What they're really worth? We are talking about people who stock shelves in a value priced super store right? I'm pretty sure minimum wage is a pretty accurate valuation of a Wal-Mart employee... or is there a level of life commitment and training I've overlooked to achieve such an important and difficult job.
- TruthforAll, on 11/22/2008, -2/+6It's called green-washing. A large corporation does a microscopic environmental change and promotes the hell out of it to improve their public image. With all of the horrible things this company has done, this is like putting a band-aid on an amputated limb.
- antonio97b, on 11/22/2008, -0/+4You broke code of silence.
Expect your price to be rolled back later tonight... - nitemonkey, on 11/22/2008, -1/+5Labor is worth the market rate the same as any other commodity.
- shiv68, on 11/22/2008, -0/+3
Yes they are going to hire Mexicans to build them. - spyd3rweb, on 11/22/2008, -11/+14Lets be honest here, most of the people I see working there aren't worth *****. They aren't helpful knowledgeable or skilled. The only people even remotely helpful are the ones behind the gun counter.
- JustinNoland, on 11/22/2008, -0/+3Renewable energy like solar and wind power do not exist en masse because the infrastructure is hard or impossible to produce and implement cheaply compared to less-green alternatives (although this is changing). As much as I dislike Wal-Mart, I must compliment them on this move of corporate goodwill, because it is acts like this which will drive the cost of producing and maintaining wind turbines down for everyone. As more corporations demand alternative energy and back it with their pocketbooks, the production lines for panels and turbines will be jump started into mass production, which means supplies can be bought in bulk, which universally lowers cost. Regardless of whether we like them or not, large corporations are going to drive the green revolution if there ever is to be one.
- teh_techie, on 11/22/2008, -0/+3Why don't they just say 100% to 54 stores instead...
It's not like they're running transmission cables to each walmart... it's just offset from the grid. - evilrevolution, on 11/22/2008, -0/+3no ties to power companies + lower electricity costs = win for walmart
- kelmaster1, on 11/22/2008, -0/+3$8 an hour?
- eloestea, on 11/22/2008, -0/+2Now they will make even more money, hopefully they'll pass some of it along to their employees.
- threepm, on 11/22/2008, -0/+2Nope.
Best Buy is the first major retailer to offer Renewable Choice’s product.
“Green Your Phone” cards will be available at 1,000 Best Buy stores nationwide starting Wednesday, Nov. 19.
The $10 purchase includes two “Offset with Wind Power” decals, one for each phone the 500 kilowatt hours covers.
As part of the “Green Your Phone” product launch, Renewable Choice is providing 10,000 of these offsets free-of-charge to Best Buy Mobile employees to help launch the program and raise awareness of the environmental benefits of RECs.
“For the past several years businesses have increasingly embraced the renewable energy credits to help grow our country’s clean power infrastructure,” Quayle Hodek, founder and CEO of Renewable Choice Energy, said in a statement. “’Green Your Phone’ is a way for forward-thinking consumers to join this effort and help drive the growth of wind power, helping to reduce our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.”
-http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/11/ ...
BBY FTW! - ProfessorRiffs, on 11/22/2008, -1/+3Unless they're really old, teenagers, or aren't fully functional or something, then yes, Wal-Mart workers are pretty low on the ladder of bacon-bringer-homers. Seriously, how little ambition in life do you have to have to work at Wal-Mart if you're a person who's completely and totally capable of doing more than that? Blind altruism equally blind empathy is for ass-hats.
- linagee, on 11/22/2008, -0/+2Welcome to Costco, I love you.
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb23/jeffcamero ... - Trent1492, on 11/22/2008, -1/+3Yep, labor is like any other commodity. So what is your asking price on the latest shipment coming out of the Slave Coast?
- brozzle, on 11/22/2008, -2/+3It's good that they're doing this, yet I expect that they'll advertise their 'good deed' excessively. There has to be an ulterior motive at play here.
- inactive, on 11/22/2008, -0/+1Dugg down because wall*mart has always been a world leader in all things green?
/sarcasm - djodorg, on 11/23/2008, -0/+1i think it's a great idea
- nitemonkey, on 11/23/2008, -0/+1In fact you are simply trying to muddy the waters by using inaccurate and offensive comparisons.
You are also confusing treating labor as a commodity with treating humans as a commodity. Labor is a service, not the person offering the service. - w00dyt, on 11/22/2008, -0/+1Oh please, what's with all the hate? It takes major corporations like this to make strides in the technologies a majority of you embrace. Granted this is done for their PR, it is still a positive step in the right direction.
- r3s0p, on 11/24/2008, -0/+1If Wal-Mart is doing it, then you can be certain that it's becoming profitable for businesses to do so. Go into any recently built Wal-Mart during the day and look up. See how much light is natural vs. artificial. It's quite amazing.
I've always thought that they should be able to plumb their vast parking lots with pipe to claim some of the heat generated during the summer months for generation, or build solar 'car ports' for the same purpose. If they used the newer tube style solar cells, they could still get adequate lighting through to the lot itself to let people park without headlights, while reducing the heat energy being absorbed by the cars. - jjamminjon, on 11/22/2008, -0/+1We ought not get into the habit of paying people to under perform. @Stuart, you speak of people supporting families, but these sort of jobs are meant for people who are fresh out of the box, you do a few years till your done with school and be on your way unless they want to make use of your newly acquired skills with a better position. Paying dropouts more only adds to the amount of tools and youngyins producing a bunch of kids that the parents will ride the back of in order to reap taxpayer benefits.
In all actuality though, everyday I see older people doing these 1-2 simpleton jobs that belong to the young adults and it is saddening really. In conclusion the angle people throw out there is noble but the whole process is jacked, you can keep feeding the digg users populist rhetoric though. - adkenc, on 11/22/2008, -0/+1speaking of green smoke screens, hey...pass it to the left!
- SavRabbit, on 11/22/2008, -1/+2Of course there's an ulterior motive. It's called a "profit margin", which are, for some reason completely unknown to me, the dirtiest words in American society/culture today.
They're following their rational self interest and cutting costs, which will raise income. What is so horrible or "sneaky" about that?
Since they are the largest retailer in the world (the next biggest retailer is 3 times smaller than Walmart), whatever Walmart does, the rest of the retail world will try to emulate. This is definitely a step in the right direction. - gamben0, on 11/22/2008, -0/+1Cool... So that's like one city's worth of their stores?
- bullbutter, on 11/22/2008, -0/+1Maybe they will be able to drop prices even more with not having those electric bills in the thousands every month. Probably a way to get a jump on the competition. They aren't doing it for nothing !
- inactive, on 11/22/2008, -1/+2It is a "Green" smokescreen. Much like the aluminium industry claims to be green and environmentally friendly. Actually these industries use huge amounts of power daily.
The costs of wind power will be great. Think of it this way : What does it take to manufacture pencils? It take incredible resources to make pencils, a low tech object.
Wood has to be harvested, graphite mined and processed, copper mined and processed,
rubber harvested and processed. People need to be fed, housed, clothed etc and some type of money has to exist to enable the trade of the materials needed to make a pencil. Transportation system need to exist also. Most of these things needed to make pencils are not found in one place. Everyone involved wants to make a little profit from their labors.
Multiple sub-systems come into play when making pencils. What makes people think that making wind turbines is easier? It is more complex than this bad example, and far more polluting. Many more people and resources are needed to make wind power devices.
Resources are DEPLETED to make these things. Green? Hardly. Think of all the products Walmart sells, each has the same attendant supply needs. It is an insidious cycle.
Nothing is really free. Wind turbines cost about 100,000 dollars for a cheap one that
is semi-efficient. How many of these devices are needed to power ONE Walmart Supercenter? Then there are the lead batteries needed to store the power. The list goes on and on. A net loss for the planet.
"Green" stuff is a smokescreen. Time to go back to school and re-learn science and economics. - corvairkid, on 11/22/2008, -0/+0Back in 2005, Wal-Mart also put out a press release about increasing the fuel efficiency of their fleet of semi-trucks. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/105/next-reali ...
- blynder, on 11/22/2008, -1/+1Is WalMart going green or is it just a marketing ploy? I'm betting on the latter. WalMart is willing to shell out a few extra dollars on their energy bill to claim "green". All they are doing is making a donation. WalMart isn't DOING anything different. Still, it's nice to see that public demand is having some affect. No doubt this is a positive step. The important thing to remember is we can't stop here. The change we need isn't in the marketing department it's in the operations department.
- sho76und3wd, on 11/22/2008, -1/+1What happens when the Red Ring of Death strikes???
- corvairkid, on 11/22/2008, -0/+0I'm not psychic but somehow I think any savings will be added under "profit" instead of raising employee wages.
- Noliaboy75, on 11/22/2008, -1/+1trent? really? comparing wal mart workers to slaves? I mean....come on....thats horrendously disrespectful
- EnergyEinstein, on 11/22/2008, -1/+1It's purely for economic reasons, they'll save money on energy costs in the long term and therefore they'll make more profit in the long run - no good will here at the base of the decision. *5 cents*
- christie21, on 12/02/2008, -0/+0Last I checked most people are less concerned with how Wal Mart gets its power and more concerned with how they get their products. It's great that they are doing the right thing here but it doesn't excuse their unethical actions in other areas.
- Trent1492, on 11/22/2008, -1/+1"really"
No. Not really. We are talking about treating labor like any other commodity. I am merely pointing out that at one time labor REALLY was treated like a commodity. Over a century ago the Western world came to agreement that it was a inhuman practice to treat labor like any other commodity.What I am doing is taking the nitemonkey at his word and simply putting it into a 19th century context. It is in this context that I hope he and others of his elk will realize the absurdity of their position of treating human labor like any other commodity.
Got it? - nitemonkey, on 11/22/2008, -2/+1We're not talking about the slave coast (which involves slavery), we're talking about Wal-Mart.
- quaunaut, on 11/22/2008, -9/+7Your lack of proving anything gives him no reason to cry. Not to mention, the vast majority of the government rebates on any kind of 'green' related energy expired years ago. And there has been nearly no government funding for green research in over a decade.
And it doesn't take a libertarian to see that the free market just works better. Traditionaly conservatives think that too.
So take your snarkyness and cry, I guess. I really don't care. - Noliaboy75, on 11/22/2008, -2/+0AMEN
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